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Find public files in Google Drive

Free OSINT tools for files, photos and documents

OSINT, or open-source intelligence, means answering a question with information anyone can lawfully see: public web pages, documents, photos, maps and records. Journalists, researchers, fact-checkers and security teams use it every day. dedigger's corner of it is files: finding public documents and checking what they say about themselves.

This list is short on purpose. It has free tools that work in a browser, most of them without an account, for working with files and pictures. It leaves out tools for tracking people down; here is why.

Find public files

  • dedigger: search documents, spreadsheets and presentations that their owners shared publicly on Google Drive.
  • Google search operators: filetype:, site: and intitle: narrow any search to one kind of file or one website. Our guide shows how.
  • Google Advanced Search: the same operators as a form, with the file type and the date of the last update.
  • DocumentCloud: documents that newsrooms published with their reporting, searchable in full text.

Check what a file says about itself

  • EXIF viewer: the camera, date, GPS location and hidden preview of a photo, read in your browser without uploading it.
  • PDF metadata: the author, software, dates, earlier versions and names in comments of a PDF, also without uploading it.
  • ExifTool: the reference program for reading the metadata of almost any kind of file, for Windows, macOS and Linux.
  • FotoForensics: error level analysis, which can hint at the parts of a JPG that were edited. It uploads the photo, so use it only for public pictures.

See how a page or file used to look

  • Wayback Machine: saved snapshots of web pages going back to 1996, and of many PDFs and other files linked from them.
  • archive.today: saves a snapshot of a page when you ask, including pages the Wayback Machine missed.
  • Memento Time Travel: looks for a page in many web archives at once, for the date you choose.

Find where a picture comes from

  • Google Lens: finds pages that show the same or a similar picture.
  • TinEye: finds other versions of an image and can sort them oldest first, which helps to find where it first appeared.
  • Bing Visual Search and Yandex Images: different indexes, so they often find what Google doesn't.

Verify videos, links and websites

  • InVID-WeVerify plugin: a browser extension made for fact-checkers, with video keyframes, reverse search, metadata and forensic filters.
  • VirusTotal: checks a file or a link with dozens of antivirus engines. Files you send are shared with security researchers, so don't send anything private.
  • urlscan.io: opens a suspicious link for you and shows where it leads and what it loads. Scans can be public.
  • ICANN Lookup: when a domain was registered and through which company, as far as the registry shows it.
  • crt.sh: certificate logs, which show the subdomains a website has had security certificates for.

Bigger lists

How to use OSINT: a simple method

  1. Write down the question. "Where was this photo taken?" can be answered; "find everything" can't.
  2. Search public sources. Start broad, then narrow down with operators, file types and dates.
  3. Save what you find as you go, with the link and the date: pages change and files disappear. Archive the important pages with the Wayback Machine or archive.today.
  4. Check each finding with a second, independent source. Metadata can be edited, and old photos are often shared again with a new story.
  5. Write down how you got there, so someone else can repeat it and check your work.

Is OSINT legal?

Looking at information that anyone can see is legal in most countries. What can make it illegal is how you get it and what you do with it:

  • Only what is public. Guessing passwords, getting past a login or using stolen data isn't OSINT, and it is a crime almost everywhere.
  • Privacy laws still apply to personal data, even public data: the GDPR in Europe, India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act and similar laws elsewhere limit collecting and keeping it.
  • Websites' terms may forbid collecting their pages with automated tools.
  • Stalking, harassment and publishing someone's private details hurt people and are crimes in many places, whatever tool was used.

This is general information, not legal advice. If your work depends on it, ask a lawyer where you live.

What this page leaves out, and why

You won't find tools here for looking up people by name, username, email address or phone number. They have honest uses, but they are also how people get tracked and harassed, and dedigger doesn't want to help with that. Before you publish anything about a person, ask whether it serves the public interest and whether it could put someone at risk.

Frequently asked questions

What is OSINT used for?

Checking photos and videos before they are reported as news, investigative journalism, academic research, background checks on companies, and security teams looking at what their own organization shows online.

Are these OSINT tools free?

Yes, all of them can be used for free. Some have paid plans with more searches or features.

Can I suggest a tool?

Yes, write to info@dedigger.com. We add free tools that fit the limits above.